This week I have been

Reading

Campaign Ruby, by Jessica Rudd, for our online book club Better Well Read Than Dead. She certainly loves name-dropping her labels.

Watching

The Plan, which reminded me that I haven't dropped enough hints to C recently about how much I want the BSG box set on Blu-Ray.

Listening to

The Pogues

Discovering

...to my great disappointment, that Jared Leto is in 30 Seconds To Mars. Why, Jared, why?

Eating

  • Mee pok at Coconut House
  • Matt Stone's fresh, Spring-y quinoa salad from this month's Australian Gourmet Traveller. (I decided that dinner was more than a "light meal", though, so added some fried haloumi for a meat-free Monday.)
  • Suckling pig rolls at Collins Quarter, which are on for another three or four weeks on Wednesdays (and at $5 a pop are a bargain). They will be followed by Spring lamb!
  • Baguette with pork rillettes from Le Traiteur - the crunchy, acid pickles go so perfectly with the rillettes
  • Eggplant with minced pork from KL Bunga Raya
  • Ipoh Hor Fun (again!) at Gurney Drive. Perfect on a wet and steamy September Saturday.  C had the Hainanese Chicken Rice and the rice was beautifully flavoured.
  • Some sticky ribs and fish-flavour pork from Fucshia Dunlop's Sichuan Cooking
  • Compost cookie batter, with Lanka mix, wasabi peas - thanks to Penny for that idea! - Twisties, Mars Bar, Clinkers and Oreos. Oh, and some Special K.  That'll teach me to try to be super-organised for morning tea. (Some did make it to the oven, I promise)

Jan Ullrich criticises Tour

This really pisses me off:

Former Tour winner Ullrich criticises race

Winner of the 1997 Tour de France, German Jan Ullrich, has criticised the Tour de France for lacking the grandeur of past.

“I don’t think that the Tour can still be defined as the greatest race in the world,” said 34 year-old Ullrich according to Agr. “It is not how it was once before. Before there were the best riders starting as favourites, but there were always the possibilities of surprises.”

Ullrich retired from racing at the end of 2007 in the heat of allegations that he was linked with Eufemiano Fuentes and Operación Puerto.

From Cyclingnews

Every year I think that I won’t watch the Tour or follow any of the European races.  Every year there is niggling innuendo, well-supported allegation and outright scandal following many of the riders.  Doping cases stretch on and on, so just when you think you can start to feel the excitement as another Tour approaches, the “winner” from two years ago is in the news again after another failed appeal.

Still, as the race gets closer, I can’t help but put some extra sleeping hours in to try to cover three weeks of sleep deficit.  I am excited that Cadel Evans will be riding with the number 1.  I’m hoping that Robbie McEwan will still manage to get in amongst it at the sprint finishes, even though his team will be riding for Cadel.  I’m confident that there will be at least one surprise stage win, a breath-taking breakaway, a heart-stopping crash.

So, just SHUT UP, Jan Ullrich.  You’re done.

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Also, Cyclingnews, is there a definition of favourite I’m not familiar with?  On Monday, Evans was “tour favourite”.  Today, Valverde is not afraid to be “tour favourite”.  Is one of these favourite in the evening wear competition and the other in the swimsuit category?  Just wondering, ‘cos I thought they would both be in the running for the yellow jersey…

Related posts:

  1. Where to now for professional cycling?
  2. The yellow jersey
  3. 2008 Tour de France is nearly here!

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